Skip drive
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The Skip Drive is the main mode of transportation across space in Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. It is a means of instantaneous travel far superior to other star travel such as Warp and Hyperspace. When the skip drive is engaged the object is instantly at it's destination. It works on the principles of coming into another universe very similar to the one it just left. By choosing this mean of travel, the object skipping can choose any point in the new universe to appear in.
Although considered a mode of FTL travel, it really isn't faster-than-light at all.
From Old Man's War by John Scalzi:
"Finally Ed... piped up. “I’m not following you, Alan. I thought that the skip drive just took us up past the speed of light or something like that. That’s how it works.”
“Nope,” Alan said. “Einstein’s still right—the speed of light is as fast as you can go. Besides which, you wouldn’t want to start flying around the universe at any real fraction of the speed of light, anyway. You hit even a little chunk of dirt while you’re going a couple hundred thousand klicks a second and you’re going to put a pretty good hole in your spaceship. It’s just a speedy way to get killed.” Ed blinked and then swept his hand over his head. “Whoosh,” he said. “You lost me.”
“All right, look,” Alan said. “You asked me how the skip drive works. And like I said, it’s simple: It takes an object from one universe, like the Modesto, and pops it into another universe. The problem is that we refer to it as a ‘drive.’ It’s not really a drive at all because acceleration is not a factor; the only factor is location within the multiverse.”
“Alan,” I said. “You’re doing another flyby.”
“Sorry,” Alan said, and looked thoughtful for a second. “How much math do you guys have?” he asked.
“I vaguely recall calculus,” I said. Ed McGuire nodded in agreement.
“Oy,” Alan said. “Fine. I’m going to use small words here. Please don’t be offended.”
“We’ll try not to,” Ed said.
“Okay. First off, the universe you’re in—the universe we’re in right htis moment—is only one of an infinite number of possible universes whose existence is allowed for within quantum physics. Every time we spot an electron in a particular position, for example, our universe is functionally defined by that electron’s position, while in the alternate universe, that electron’s position is entirely different. You following me?”
“Not at all,” said Ed.
“You nonscientists. Well, just trust me on it, then. The point is: multiple universes. The multiverse. What the skip drive does is open a door to another one of those universes."
[edit] Problems
There are only two known problems with the skip drive: 1) Personal continuity is maintained, but universal continuity is lost, and 2) for an unknown reason, when skipping too far away ships and objects skipping tend to disappear. This has been called skipping outside the skip zone. The skip zone is held as the area to which skips are bound. This may seem as just a plot device so that (in the novels) the same races continue to fight each other, and races from across the universe don't just skip in and end the story by conquering everyone; it is still binding to the skip drive.
Category:Interstellar travel Category:Faster-than-light travel Category:Science fiction themes Category:Pseudoscience Category:Physics in fiction
